food budget

[RALIKA]

how much does everyone spen per day on food.

 

[yecats]

I generally average anywhere from $40 top $60 on food per day. I find that I attempt to eat at a better restaurant at least every other day so dinner on that day may cost $25-$40 with lunch this day costing $10 and breakfast about $5 to $8. On the next day, I may do a buffet lunch $18, dinner around $10 and breakfast $5-$8. Depending on my snack/drink needs that could be another $8 to $10 a day. Food really depends on how you like to eat. Some people can go several days with each of their meals being the fastfood type (I get sick of this everyday). If you stick with the fastfood then most of your meals will average $10 a meal. I find that if your a healthy eater and choose to snack on fruit instead of icecream then that will save you a bit as well. If you live to try different restaurants then you may want to consider getting the dining plan add on if your staying on grounds and booked through WDTC. It's $35 a day and must be purchased for each day of your trip but dinners are covered at the better restaurants (with many at Epcot) and you can maximize your dinner cost which really seems to be a value for the better restaurants.

 

[oogieboogie]

depends on what you eat really. If you check out allearsnet.com under the dining section, you can see the menus and prices and make a determination on what works for you.

We (2 adults, 2 kids 7 & 4) like to eat more table service than counter so we budget about $40-50 for lunch and $75-100 for dinner at the most. We don't eat big breakfasts and if we do eat breakfast it usually $15 or under for all of us.

So about $150-200 per day including snacks for our family works for us.

 

[bigbabyblues]

Our budget last year was $140 a day--me, DH, DSalmost 4 and DS 15 months. We used most of it, there were days we were $25-30 under, but there were other days we were over. We ate one sit down meal each day, and two of the days we did two sit-downs.

 

[WDW LifeLong Fan]

We usually eat a light breakfast, little or no lunch, and a nice dinner each evening. For the four of us we usually spend $250 daily.

 

[Joy]

I budget $200 a day. 2 adults, 2 kids (4 & 5). We at one sit down meal and one counter service meal a day. We got breakfast at the snack bar of the hotel.

 

[rileyroosmom]

We just came back from a 9 night stay. We spent approx. $1000 on food for the 5 of us (dh, me ds11,ds8,dd4). We ate breakfast in our room with the food that we brought and we ate counter services and sit downs at
O'hanas - dinner
WCC - dinner
Prime Time Cafe - last seating for lunch 3:30-4
Kona Cafe - breakfast
Chef Mickey's - last seating for breakfast

For us it was approx $110/day

 

[Laugh O. Grams]

I figure approx. $250-300 per day for the two of us. We typically do a sit down or room service breakfast, counter service lunch, sit down dinner and plenty of Fiesta Margaritas (the rainbow ones) at Epcot. If you plan on doing any kind of wine drinking with dinners and cocktails at Happy Hour, you can really run up a serious tab!

 

[zipDdoodah]

Just went on All Ears and budgeted 250.00 per day for 2 adults and 3 kids. It is a combination of sitdowns and table service, many times ordering smoothies and specialty drinks plus desserts. I am planning $1800 for 7 days. YIKES! Better get to work. We are leaving in 2 weeks!

 

[hrmom26]

you could get the dinning plan and save money, i set out 100 a day for food but i might use the dinning plan it looks like you'd save some $$$

 

[DeirdreTours]

We have typically scheduled a late lunch character buffet (say a 2pm seating) as our main meal of the day. We also have a minimum daily Mickey Bar allowance (2 per day!). A bowl of cereal and milk for the kids to breakfast on in the rooms, fruit/cheese for late afternoon snacking and a counter service dinner. For our family of 4 this shakes out to about $160 a day (ds13, dd6, toddler not being counted).

We have the free dining plan for our next trip which will allow us a lot more pricey dinner dining.

 

[jjohnson]

For our family of 5 about $200 a day.

 

[tn_disney_addict]

This year...not much

WOOO HOOOO for the Fall Dining Plan Special....

 

[twinklebug]

how much does everyone spen per day on food.

It all depends on whether DH is with us or not

For our trip last year (3 adults, 2 kids) I budgeted $100/day counting on the fact that we would have a full kitchen available to us. We had $$ left over at the end of the trip

 

[catbertdave99]

I budget $100 daily for food etc. I have just a DS14 and DS11 and myself, and we do roughly ZERO sit-down meals because we're constantly on the go at the parks, and the boys just want to hang out and relax at the resort (not sit down at a restaurant). So our costs for meals are somewhat reduced by that, balanced out by two hungry kids and me....

 

[Leota]

Depends on the type of trip.
If DH is with us, we tend to put more emphasis on finer dining & budget usually comes out to about $200 per day for the 3 of us (DH, Myself & 16 yo DS) 2 TS & 1 CS meal per day

Budget trip for DS & I this Aug, I am planning about $100 per day for the 2 of us, breakfast in the room, & mostly counter service - the extra $$ from the CS days will be well spent with a couple splurge meals at CG & Wolfgang Puck's.

When DS was younger & less of an eater, we could do budget trips for $50 a day for food - Now he eats more than that at one sit-down meal.

 

[freakylick]

As you can tell from the responses, food budgets can vary greatly from family to family. A lot depends on eating habits and how much effort you want to go through to save some money. If you only want to eat at counter service and you only eat two meals/day with maybe a snack here or there, then you could probably budget as little as $30-40/day/person. If you are traveling with significant other and you can share meals (and portions at WDW are usually pretty healthy), then you may spend less than that/person/day. On the contrary, if you are traveling with a family and you want to do a lot of sit-down meals and your 3 kids all order off of the adult menu and everyone eats whatever they want all day long, then you could easily spend $300/day for that family of 5.

Right now, I have budget about $100/day for my wife and I...but that is based on our eating habits which may differ from yours.The best advice is to generalize your eating habits and then (as someone mentioned earlier) check out the menus at allearsnet. That's what I did, then I came over here and ran some of my habits and assumptions by fellow Dis'ers just to see if what I came up seemed reasonable. Good luck!

 

[Jen_in_NH]

DH and I usually go shopping the night we arrive, and get stuff for breakfast in the room, and snacks to bring into the parks. That way, we can pretty much skip lunch, and save money for sit down meals at dinner. It works out to about $75/day. It might be tough to do with kids, if you had to carry snacks and drinks all day for more than 2 people though...

 

[RedRuby]

From everyone's responses, I'm thinkking that for most people, a good plan would be to get a hotel+ticket+meal plan package, and then pay for extras on top of the plan if need be.

For instance, one family of two adults and 3 children might budget $250/day for meals; the meal plan for those 5 people would be $100/day ($35+$35+$10+$10+$10). That family would either have $150 to spend on breakfasts, extra treats or snacks or another sit down restaurant, and would likely still save a significant amount of money compared to their budget.
On the other hand, if your budget was $60 per couple, and the meal plan costs $70, then you'd need to decide if the extra $10 was worth being on the plan (which has its own pluses and minuses)...

This wouldn't suit everyone since the meal packages aren't available with room only, AP or DVC rates (at this time), and not everyone wants that particular breakdown of counter service, table service and snacks.

Does this make sense?

 

[zipDdoodah]

We really like to do the packages that include dining, and we usually use them. Unfortunately, on this trip we rented DVC points so we can't use the dining plan, but I would highly recommend it. It simplifies the budgeting process quite a bit, and it's fun to be able to eat at all of the different restaurants and order whatever you want off the menu without thinking about the price. On our next trip we are definitely doing the dining plan.